Why the 2018 election will be even worse than 2016

Impeachment will be the main issue in next year’s midterm elections, which is exactly why 2018 will be even more insufferable than was 2016.

The ground has shifted since former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony last week generated a bigger television audience than the NBA Finals, as Byron York at the Washington Examiner points out in his superb analysis. York makes several good points in his breakdown, but this is the most important one: Impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one.

In political reality, it’s not some scholarly debate over what the Constitution means by “high crimes and misdemeanors” that matters. What really matters is what 218 elected members of the House of Representatives believe it means.

And as Matthew Continetti keenly observed at the Free Beacon, by giving Comey the “crooked Hillary” treatment, Trump may have walked face-first into the Democrats’ clenched fist. Especially since one of Trump’s sons has already gone on record contradicting his father’s defense against Comey’s accusations.

Meanwhile, you have independent counsel Robert Mueller, who is close friends with Comey, putting together an investigative dream team. And given the history of these independent counsels, the odds of Mueller coming back with a “nothing to see here folks” are about the odds of Trump giving up Twitter.

Then there’s two other political realities that factor in here — the Democrats are out of ideas, and the Republicans don’t really believe in theirs.

Let’s face it: By his “pen and a phone,” Barack Obama pretty much put the entire progressive endgame for American exceptionalism into motion; it’s just a matter of whether or not there’s any political will to stop it from running its course.

But that’s a political will, sadly, the Republicans are already demonstrating they don’t have — the most glaring example being their unwillingness to keep their eight-year promise to actually repeal Obama’s signature (and most unpopular) policy. That would, of course, be Obamacare, which has cost Democrats over 900 elections since it was enacted.

That doesn’t even count things like keeping Obama’s illegal executive amnesty in place; the troublesome early returns on what Republicans are currently calling “tax reform”; and unconditional debt limit increases.

In fairness, based on the resumes of several judges Trump/Republicans have installed thus far, there is potential good news on the judicial appointment front. But given the checkered history of “conservative judges,” it’s best to temper that enthusiasm until we actually see some of their rulings.

So while we wait on the actual judicial returns, too much of the Republican legislative agenda is to leave Obama’s progressive agenda in place (confirmed by the fact GOP strategists want to run against the media in 2018). That is a clear signal they’re not planning on procuring that many policy accomplishments, so they’ll need a boogeyman message to get out the vote next year.

Furthermore, since Democrat policies are unpopular, and the Republicans would rather manage the swamp than drain it, both sides will run on the boogeyman message.

Midterm elections are primarily base-turnout operations anyway, but we’re also coming off a 2016 when more people voted against the other option, as opposed to for theirs. Since then, most of the criticisms each side has of the other have only been cemented.

That leaves impeachment as the only real issue for each side to drive out its base with. Therefore, Democrats will run on “vote for us to impeach Trump” … and Republicans will run on “they’re going to impeach Trump if you don’t vote for us.” Translation: Both sides are really running on the same message — “We know you hate us, but what other choice do you have?”

Inspiring, I know.

Democrats will nationalize Trump, who will then hit the road for rallies to ridicule “Pouty Pelosi” and “Shady Schumer” in front of his adoring throng in response (hoping they provide as useful a foil as Hillary “Mommy Dearest” Clinton did for him last year).

Adding more fuel to the fire this time is perhaps the most divisive issue of them all — impeachment. Because it’s essentially election nullification when you really think about it (which is why it requires an extraordinary threshold).

Better get ready: 2018 is going to be everything you hated about 2016 … albeit with both sides even less popular than they were then, and arguing whether or not to justify disenfranchising the nearly 63 million people who voted Trump for president.

If you thought last year brought out the worst in both sides’ mindless binary-choice drones, next year’s environment will offer up an even dirtier drain for them to circle.

Is it still too late for SMOD?